Above Bed Canvas Art

So, after getting married, I moved into my husband’s duplex. Needless to say it was on mancave overdrive! I had my work cut out for me, but with some feminine touches here and there, I made it our home.

One of the projects I took upon myself to complete was adding some bedroom decor. All of the walls are kind of a neutral warm grey color. I love the colors blue and green so I wanted to incorporate that into the theme. I love to paint and I had an extra canvas so I went to work. I came up with this canvas art of our initials.

Here’s what I used:

16×20 canvas

acrylic paints

brushes – 2” wide, assortment of small detail brushes

letter fonts

You can really use any size canvas. I chose a 16×20. It was on sale and I hadn’t yet figured out what I was going to do with it. I prefer bigger art over furniture, such as the bed or couch. This size is not huge, but it works for small spaces.

As far as paint scheme goes, you can use any colors you like. I really like earthy tones with splashes of color here and there. I chose a sandy brown for my background color. I kind of had to mix some of my acrylics to get the look I wanted. If you like this color and don’t want to mix paint sometimes craft stores will have an array of colors in small tubes. If you want to mix, I started off with cream. You can use white as well. I mixed a small amount of yellow and a very tiny amount of brown. I really just had to play with it until I got the color I liked. It’s best to use small amounts so you don’t end up with a lot of leftover paint. Try using a dot about the size of your pinky fingernail.

Once I got the color I wanted, I brushed my entire canvas. To give it some extra texture, I dipped the paintbrush in water, dabbed it on a cloth, and brushed over my paint. This made it lighter in some areas.

Next, I wanted to add some color. I chose a light, muted green and a light blue. I didn’t want my colors to be neon or too bright. I then started in one corner with one color and brushed towards the center. I did the same with the other color in the opposite corner. I always started in the corner and brushed outwards, so the paint would be less saturated in the middle.

When I finished with my color, I decided to add some detail in the corners. I picked a dark brown and lightly added a small branch. Then I took some of the green and blue paint and added green leaves in the green area and blue leaves in the blue. I didn’t use very much paint because I wanted the leaves to be subtle.

I love adding my initials to things. And now that I have a new last name I like to let everyone know about it. 🙂 So, I decided to put our initials as the main focus of my painting. Note: Make sure your painting is dry before adding initials. (If you don’t let the background dry, the paint will just mix and look yucky.) Since my last name begins with “B” I looked up different fonts and chose one I liked. I did my best to pencil the outline of the “B” in the middle of my painting. Then I put his initial on the left and mine on the right using the same method. If you mess up with the pencil, don’t worry. Once everything dries you can go back and paint over the marks with the right color.

After I finished the letters, I still felt like something was missing. So I took my paintbrush and dipped it in some water, dabbed it, and lightly brushed around the edge of my painting. Not over the letters, just around them to create a worn sort of look. I liked it. So did my other half apparently. He said it looked like something from Hobby Lobby. I suppose that’s a compliment? Anyway, it’s up and I’m happy.

Now I have a nice painting hanging right over our heads as we sleep at night. This was a really easy canvas art project and I hope you enjoyed it!

Stay tuned for more DIY projects for home and classroom. Have a great rest of the day! 🙂